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An "environmental economist" has produced a study in which he claims that climate change this century will "cause" millions of violent crimes in the United States, over and above those that would have happened anyway.

Matthew Ranson holds a B.A. in Environmental Science and Public Policy and Economics and a PhD in Public Policy, both from Harvard university. He works at a consultancy firm in Cambridge, Massachusetts. He has recently had published an academic paper, in which he writes:

Between 2010 and 2099, climate change will cause an additional 22,000 murders, 180,000 cases of rape, 1.2 million aggravated assaults, 2.3 million simple assaults, 260,000 robberies, 1.3 million burglaries, 2.2 million cases of larceny, and 580,000 cases of vehicle theft in the United States.

The study is published in the Journal of Environmental Economics and Management.

Ranson asserts that along with other possible things that might need doing to cope with the effects of climate change - improved sea defences against rising oceans, for instance - the USA will also need to hire no less than four per cent more cops in order to cope with the carbon-powered 21st century wave of robberies, rapes, murders and twockings*.